Mark-Anthony Rassman
A retired Atlantic City police officer was ordered held in jail Friday, after he allegedly tried to hide guns from officers in a domestic violence case.
Egg Harbor Township police had come to Mark-Anthony Rassmann's home in an attempt to seize his legally owned guns as a result of a temporary restraining order filed by his wife.
Rassmann, 56, told the officers he had a feeling this would happen, so he had moved his guns to a residence in Pennsylvania.
Police eventually would find several guns inside the residence on Tremont Avenue, a Glock handgun in his truck and several prohibited large-capacity magazines, according to the charges. There also were two guns inside a briefcase at his wife's residence in Atlantic City, including one reported stolen from Wheeling, W.Va.
Defense attorney Jordan Barbone presented Rassmann as a retired police officer with a decorated 10-year career that ended with a medical-related retirement. Rassman then went on to build successful companies that included Levi Construction, along with serving as a pastor for 27 years.
He said that Rassman was flustered by the restraining order since he had never had any such interaction before, and eventually did cooperate, giving officers access to his truck to obtain one of the guns and providing the officers who responded to the Atlantic City home with the code to get into his briefcase.
But the state painted a much different picture of the four-hour ordeal, including that police first cleared the Egg Harbor Township residence with just the shotgun, after they could not find a safe in the bedroom filled with toddler toys and kids' clothing that he claimed was where he stayed.
It was a call to his estranged wife that led people to the bedroom on the other side of the home where they found the safe, along with her insistence that he had no residence where he would have taken the guns to in Pennsylvania.
When police returned with this new information, Rassmann again insisted that the guns were not there, according to the charges.
"He was only cooperative after they started to find weapon upon weapon upon weapon in his home," Judge Christine Smith said.
The judge also read from the restraining order filed by Rassmann's wife that indicated she was scared of him and that he had punched and choked her in the past.
"This is a retired police officer who, at every turn, appears to be obstructionist," she said.
The history of physical violence coupled with his refusal to be cooperative "is a red flag in this court's mind," Smith said.
The judge also did not believe that the restraining order in any way flustered or confused the defendant considering his history as a police officer.
"He had to have been, at some point in his career, familiar with how to serve a restraining order and the restraining order process," she said.
The judge then ordered Rassmann held in the Atlantic County Justice Facility pending the outcome of his case.
He is charged with obstruction, contempt of a domestic violence restraining order, certain person not to possess firearms, receiving stolen property and prohibited weapons.
